Notes - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 212

others are content for produce to travel long distances if consumers express a
demand in the market.
32 For details of organic production, see USDA (2000) Factbook (www.
usda.gov). See also Greene and Dobbs, 2001. The 3.3 million hectares of organic
farming in the European Union in the year 2000 includes 420,000 hectares in
the UK, 29,000 hectares in the Netherlands, 320,000 hectares in France,
455,000 hectares in Germany, 360,000 hectares in Austria, and 255,000 hectares
in Italy. See Soil Association (2000) The Organic Food and Farming Report . See also
Lampkin and Padel, 1994; Lampkin and Midmore, 2000.
33 See Balfour (1943) The Living Soil , p173. See also Conford (ed), 1988.
34 For a recent comparison of UK farming systems, see Tinker (2000) Shades
of Green.
35 Nick Robins and Andrew Simms (2000) analysed a National Opinion
Poll (NOP) survey conducted for Satish Kumar's journal Resurgence . Interestingly,
when individuals were asked what they would do if they had a free day off, 38
per cent said they would spend time with friends and family, and 28 per cent
said they would go for a walk in the country. Only 16 per cent said shopping,
and 2 per cent said they would watch television. People were also asked how they'd
like to be remembered - 68 per cent said as a good parent or kind person. Only
2 per cent said that they would like to be remembered as a wealthy or successful
business person. Willingness to act for the environment was also high, with 24
per cent saying public protest was the best way to protect the environment, and
32 per cent saying public boycotts. Only 15 per cent said nothing could be done.
This survey indicates considerable hope, with values of connectedness between
people and with the environment far exceeding the consumerist, modernist
mythology. This opposes some of the images of our modern world.
36 Data for visits and expenditure in the UK countryside come from the
Countryside Agency (2001) and English Tourist Council (2000), who use the
UK Leisure Day Visits Survey and UK tourism surveys to calculate the number
of visits made to the countryside for leisure and recreational activities. In 1998,
some 1.261 billion tourist day-visits were made, of which 72 per cent were to
towns, 6 per cent to the seaside, and 22 per cent to the countryside. In addition
to day visits, a further 172 million tourist trips are taken by UK and overseas
residents, in which one or more nights are spent away, totalling 707 million days.
Thus, there were 433 million visit-days to the countryside. Average spend per
day/night is UK£16.90 for UK day visitors, UK£33.00 for UK overnight
visitors, and UK£58.40 for overseas overnight visitors, putting the total spend
at UK£11.02 billion per year.
37 The oldest environmental or countryside group in the UK is the Open
Spaces Society, which was established in 1865 and was set up to protect
commons in metropolitan areas. Most organizations aim to protect something
perceived as threatened, such as birds and wildlife (eg the Royal Society for the
Protection of Birds, the Sierra Club and the Wildlife Trusts); animal welfare (eg
the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, with 25,000
members); the preservation of houses and properties (eg the National Trust);